Figure 1: Worldwide Touch Screen Module Market Forecast (Revenues)

“For a product to be successful in any kind of economic condition, it has to be either cheaper than competitive offerings or has to be highly differentiated. We’ve seen this firsthand with the success of display-centric products like Apple’s iPhone and Amazon’s Kindle, which feature next-generation display technologies like touch screens and electrophoretic displays,” noted Dr. Jennifer Colegrove, Director of Display Technologies at DisplaySearch. “The industry’s best and brightest in these hot market segments will come together during DisplaySearch’s Emerging Display Technologies Conference to discuss strategies, opportunities and challenges in an effort to ensure the success of tomorrow’s display technologies — making it a must attend for all those looking to play a role in the future of displays,” Dr. Colegrove added.

Sessions at the DisplaySearch Emerging Display Technologies Conference will address these hot topics:

Touch Screens
With touch screen revenues forecast to exceed $9 billion in revenue by 2015 (as shown in Figure 1), opportunities this segment are promising for new touch screen technologies reaching commercialization. Conference attendees will learn about the latest trends in touch screen markets and technologies in a dedicated morning session. Confirmed speakers for the touch sessions include

Epaper, Flexible and Low Power Displays
Epaper, flexible and low power displays are taking off and applications such as ebooks, enewspapers, mobile displays, USB drives, shelf labels and wearable displays all show promise. Presentations in this session include

OLEDs & OLED Lighting
According to DisplaySearch’s latest research, the total organic light emitting diode (OLED) display market will grow from $0.6 billion in 2008 to $7.1 billion by 2016, at a CAGR of 36%. OLEDs have penetrated into the mobile phone, TV and recently the mini-note industries, and OLED lighting is evolving and will take off around 2011. Featuring presentations from companies including eMagin, participants will discuss the outlook for OLED as well as for OLED lighting.

Pocket Projectors and More
Whether it’s for business road warriors or entertainment use, pocket projectors have made it possible to project a large image from a small device nearly anywhere. Despite this, battery life and brightness remain challenges for this emerging segment. Speakers in this session include representatives from

DisplaySearch’s Emerging Display Technologies Conference: Innovation for the Next Wave of Growth will take place on September 3 in San Jose, California. To view the latest agenda and register for the conference visit www.displaysearch/emergingtech. Conference attendees will gain insight from the presentations and panel sessions, as well as DisplaySearch’s latest market data and outlook for these segments.

This Emerging Display Technologies Conference: Innovation for the Next Wave of Growth is part of DisplaySearch’s Fall Conference Series, taking place September 1-3 in San Jose, California. The series also includes these one-day conferences covering the display industry’s hottest market segments:

Early registration for all three conferences ends on July 31. Receive a 20% discount when you register for more than one of our Fall Conferences.

For more information about these conferences and sponsorship opportunities, please contact Laura Castellano at 1.408.226.1101 or laura_castellano(at)displaysearch(dot)com. Media interested in attending the conferences should contact Stacey Voorhees-Harmon at 1.925.336.9592 or stacey(at)savvypublicrelations(dot)net.

About DisplaySearch
DisplaySearch, an NPD Group Company, has a core team of 57 employees, located in Europe, North America and Asia, who produce a valued suite of FPD-related market forecasts, technology assessments, surveys, studies and analyses. Visit the DisplaySearch blog to read about how our top analysts are interpreting up-to-the-minute issues that impact the display industry, and join us in this discussion about technology and the flat panel industry. The company also organizes influential events worldwide. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, DisplaySearch has regional operations in Chicago, Houston, Kyoto, London, San Diego, San Jose, Seoul, Shenzhen, Taipei and Tokyo, and the company is on the web at http://www.displaysearch.com/.

About The NPD Group, Inc.
The NPD Group is the leading provider of reliable and comprehensive consumer and retail information for a wide range of industries. Today, more than 1,700 manufacturers, retailers, and service companies rely on NPD to help them drive critical business decisions at the global, national, and local market levels. NPD helps our clients to identify new business opportunities and guide product development, marketing, sales, merchandising, and other functions. Information is available for the following industry sectors: automotive, beauty, commercial technology, consumer technology, entertainment, fashion, food and beverage, foodservice, home, office

“The expectations organizations and individuals have for communicating and collaborating in the workplace continues to grow significantly,” said Sandeep Mehrotra, Director Sales, Adobe Systems. “The ability to break through and communicate a message in a compelling way has never been at a greater premium. Acrobat 9 is a response to this environment and is poised to fundamentally change how professionals communicate and collaborate using electronic documents.”

For the first time, Acrobat 9 provides deep support for Adobe Flash technology, enabling users to include Adobe Flash Player compatible video and application files in PDF documents. Recipients simply need free Adobe Reader® 9 software to consume the content. Now, static documents can come to life as dynamic communications.

Acrobat 9 also includes the ability to unify a wide range of content into a single document with the new concept of PDF Portfolios. PDF Portfolios enable business professionals to assemble multiple media types, such as documents, video, audio, and even 3D objects, into one, compressed PDF file. Users can then choose among several professional layouts—or create their own—to quickly integrate content, define navigation, and add polish and branding. As a result, communications such as sales proposals, legal documents, and product collateral can become far more customized and compelling.

In addition, Acrobat 9 provides access to capabilities for collaborating live within a PDF document—enabled by working with Acrobat.com, a new suite of hosted services Adobe introduced as public beta today. For example, a salesperson could use Acrobat 9 to send a lengthy contract to clients. The sales professional, or any of the recipients using Adobe Reader1, can then drive the group’s navigation through the PDF document in real-time working with Acrobat.com. This helps ensure everyone is literally, and figuratively, on the same page.

Additionally, Acrobat 9 users can access Acrobat.com for storing and sharing files, use it as a central location for collecting data as part of a forms process, and to gather comments in a shared document review. Acrobat.com includes other services, such as Adobe ConnectNow, personal Web conferencing that provides desktop sharing, video and voice conferencing, and integrated chat; and Adobe Buzzword®, an elegant, Web-based word processor that can be used to easily co-author and share documents for comment and review, creating high-quality print results.

The Acrobat 9 family consists of Acrobat 9 Standard, Acrobat 9 Pro, and the new Acrobat 9 Pro Extended software. The most comprehensive member of the family, Acrobat 9 Pro Extended, includes Adobe Presenter software for easily turning Microsoft® PowerPoint presentations into multimedia experiences that can be published as PDF files.

Are you getting the results from your mailings that you want?

Do you have a marketing machine that delivers you a CONSISTENT and PREDICATABLE response every time you use it?

Or is your marketing machine currently ‘broken’?

Well let me ask you this… Do you have a steady stream of potential clients coming your way?

Or are you like the many other designers in business today who are constantly frustrated with their lack of leads?

Whichever position you find yourself in, there is one thing as a design entrepreneur you need to always be thinking about, and that is – “how can I improve my current marketing response rates?”

Don’t know what a response rate is?

A response rate would be the number of people who respond to your mailing each time you send it out. For instance… if you sent out a 100 sales letters and got 10 people responding to you, your response rate would be 10%.

If you could do that with a sales letter or a promotional mailing that would be a pretty sweet marketing machine. Mail out 100 letters – get 10 responses in return.

But while that sounds like a really nice thing to happen, getting good results is no easy task. There are a few critical factors you need to be aware of to get your response rates up.

And one of those crucial elements is a targeted list.

A targeted list can make all the difference between success and failure in your marketing program.

So, what exactly is a targeted list?

The easiest way to explain this is to show you what a targeted list isn’t.

Let’s say you have a business directory listing all the companies in your town or city. It contains every conceivable type of business from retail stores and restaurants to manufacturers and  trucking firms. You could start in the “A” section and mail your sales letter to every one of these companies, working your way through the alphabet until you get the “Z”.

How successful do you think your mailing would be? Not very.

That’s because your list isn’t a targeted list at all. You’re simply scooping up a list of company names randomly and hitting them with the same generic letter. That’s as close to junk mail as you can get. And it will most likely be perceived that way by your recipient.

In a targeted list all the names have one or more things in common. They could be all dentists, or Marketing Managers of large corporations, or share a common marketing or communication problem.

When you have a targeted list it allows you to customize your mailing to the specific needs, wants and desires of people on that list. It provides you with a ‘connection’ to a real person with a real need.

And it’s your starting point to building a relationship with them and getting them as a future client.

So how do you create a targeted list? There are a dozens of ways to create a powerful mailing list that will yield you results.

Here are two ways low-cost ways that you can use to create one for your own business…

1. Your best list is close to home

One of the best places to start when creating a targeted list is in your own business with your in-house list.

Your in-house list is made up of clients, prospects and other contacts that you have built up over the years.

This is your best list because, in some way, everyone knows you. And because they do, they’re more likely to open your envelope, read your letter, or scan through your promo material. Based on your connection with them, it is very likely the will be interested in what you send them and they will trust what you have to say.

Don’t think you have that many people on your in-house list?

Chances are, there are a lot of potential clients that you already know–at least to some degree. People you’ve met at business meetings and events. Companies you’ve worked with before, perhaps in a previous job. Projects you’ve quoted, but never won. Dig deep. You can probably come up with dozens, or even a hundred or more, names.

Building an in-house list is often an overlooked strategy for many designers. Most designers focus on developing new contacts but miss the opportunity they already have in their own business.

If you want a targeted list that yields results, then make building your in-house list a top priority when marketing your design services.

2. Success by Association

Another effective way to build your list is through Business and Professional Associations.

Once you’ve identified a target market for your mailings you can research what the business groups and associations are for that industry. And in many cases, you can join the association comprised of companies you want to do business with.

Many of the business associations allow for full memberships or if they don’t they will often allow provisional, student or associate memberships. As a member, you’ll have access to their membership list, which can make a great mailing list for you.

When you join an association, you not only get access to their list of members, but you will be alerted to upcoming events and current issues of your target market. Giving you an inside advantage over your competitors.

There are some challenges however.

Be aware that some associates control or limit how their membership use their list, especially regarding marketing. So always check in advance about their codes of conduct regarding marketing to the membership. And be sure to respect their rules.

Utilizing these two simple list building techniques can dramatically improve the response rates of your promotional material and sales letters.

Resulting in more clients for you and your business.
Dedicated to Graphic Designer Success

Michael Huggins, RGD
ForGraphicDesignersOnly.com
Michael@forgraphicdesignersonly.com
www.forgraphicdesignersonly.com

© 2007 Michael Huggins, www.forgraphicdesignersonly.com
 

(PRWEB) November 29, 2007 — Urban Geko, boutique print, multimedia and web design firm in Newport Beach, California, shares five tips for bringing value to your brochure.

“I try to impress on my clients the importance of their brochures,” says Urban Geko co-founder Reza Widjaja. “If designed correctly, a brochure can do wonders for a company.”

Urban Geko’s 5 Design Secrets:

1. Use thick and glossy paper stock. The use of high-end paper stock gives the impression that you offer quality, high-end services and products.

2. Have fun with paper sizes and shapes. Try not to use the regular 8.5″x11″ size. Stand out from the rest, use odd paper sizes and shapes catch attention and make potential customers want to hold onto them.

3. Limit your colors to keep your piece tasteful. Too many colors can make the piece complicated and turn off potential clients. Try not to use more than three colors.

4. Use stock images. Stock images are professionally taken and offer top-notch quality. The better quality and resolution your photos the more reputable your company appears.

5. Leave plenty of white space on your brochure. White space allows for the eyes to rest and directs the eye to key information. A cluttered brochure lends the idea that your company is disorganized and offers low-end products and services.

Urban Geko’s design secrets have led their design team to several awards and accolades as they serve businesses of all sizes.

“If I could offer a single piece of advice, it would be to get your marketing collateral right the first time around,” says Widjaja. Poorly conceived and designed pieces can do more damage than you know.

For more information on Urban Geko visit www.urbangeko.com or call their offices for a free consultation at 949-798-6150.

About Urban Geko:
Co-founded by Monique Lefrancois and Reza Widjaja in 2005, Urban Geko is a full service design agency that blends creative passion and marketing expertise with a clean & professional design style to help companies grow and succeed. From brand creation to ad campaigns to sophisticated dynamic Web sites and everything in between, Urban Geko will meet and exceed all client expectations while providing the personal attention a company deserves

Swindon, UK (PRWEB) October 5, 2007 – Sawmill Analytics announces that Sawmill Lite, the entry level product within it’s world-leading Sawmill family of log file analysis tools, is now FREE to anyone requesting a copy. Following completion of the request form found on its web site at www.sawmill.co.uk a unique and perpetual activation key will be emailed to the requestor. The free license is for a single installation only, however no limit is placed on the number of free licenses that may be requested and installed within the same organisation, or the number of users of the data or reports Sawmill Lite produces.   

Sawmill Lite is the entry level product from the Sawmill stable providing almost immediate access to its ‘live’ data reports, with the powerful ability to drill-down into the Sawmill Lite database. Sawmill Lite is the ‘install and go’ product within the Sawmill family. Its reduced set-up options and simplified configurability mean it can be up and running and providing in-depth actionable data within a very short time, typically minutes.

Containing support for over 750 different log file formats Sawmill Lite’s unmatched versatility sets it apart from every other analysis tool by providing a product to analyse almost every type of log file format commonly encountered, with hosting on Unix, Linux, Macintosh, and Windows systems. Most commonly hosted on a modern personal computer Sawmill Lite may optionally be installed on a network server, or even on the web server being analysed, utilising the target web server to publish its reports, or the integrated web server within Sawmill Lite. Sawmill Lite can also export its reports by email in .csv format

Sawmill Lite is complemented by Sawmill Professional and Sawmill Enterprise editions providing a consistent and familiar user upgrade path for customers wishing or needing to make use of the more powerful functions within those products. Both the Professional and Enterprise editions contain the same integrated and extremely fast Sawmill database as Sawmill Lite, while Sawmill Enterprise has the additional option of MySQL support for users requiring this open standard SQL database platform. Both Professional and Enterprise editions can support ‘Report Profiles’ of unlimited quantity allowing data to be culled from every corner of an organisation and from multiple and diverse sources concurrently, while the Enterprise version adds support for multi-processor systems, plus the unique flexibility of almost total customisation of the user interface. Using this unparralled flexibility users of Sawmill Enterprise are granted the right to create a personalised and customised user interface

All Sawmill products may be downloaded as free 30 day trial copies by visiting the Sawmill Analytics website at www.sawmill.co.uk/

Users of Free Sawmill Lite may seek support from the Sawmill Support Forums or the comprehensive Sawmill FAQ pages to be found on our website. More detailed questions may be reported to Sawmill by completing the special fault submission form on our website at http://freelite.sawmill.co.uk/

Greenlight Wireless Releases New Ad Mobilization Technology

Advertizer now dynamically adapts text-based ads to conform to MMA standards.

Irvine, Calif. (PRWEB) October 1, 2007 — Greenlight Wireless today announced a new, patent-pending technology that reformats the presentation of text-based ads created for the desktop to conform to Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) standards.

“This latest innovation to Greenlight’s ad platform adapts ad text for the mobile environment without losing the meaning or impact of the ad,” said Greenlight Wireless President Mark Sieve. “This complex process provides content publishers and ad networks with high cost-per-click desktop ads that will both look and work great in the mobile environment.”

This new technology converts text-based online ads that may include both a headline and an abstract into a format that conforms to MMA standards, which allows for a maximum of two lines of 16 characters each. The dynamically adapted ad text retains its context and “clickability” and the conversion process takes place real-time at sub-second speeds. This display-reformatting system has applications outside the mobile space and can be used to transform ad text to meet many diverse specifications, such as language translation and other localization and network-related criteria.

The new ad reformatting technology is currently available through Greenlight’s Advertizer service, which is a converged ad network that provides both mobile and desktop ads through a single ad feed. Since its release in 2004, Advertizer has used proprietary technology to dynamically reformat ad landing pages created for the desktop environment in such a way that they load quickly and effectively on mobile devices. This latest advance allows Advertizer to fully mobilize desktop text-based ads from the initial presentation of the ad through to the click-through event.

About Advertizer:
Advertizer is the world’s first internationally-consumed mobile advertising service, having served mobile ads in over 175 countries since its release in 2004. Advertizer works by retrieving ads based on keywords or other user input from multiple top-tier ad suppliers, then providing a single ad feed that works across diverse distribution channels, such as mobile and desktop. These ads can be provided in a variety of formats, including CPC, location-based and click-to-call, and can be delivered via commonly-used systems, such as XML, HTML and RSS. Advertizer offers a 50/50 revenue sharing model and doesn’t apply the hidden charges and fees often associated with other ad providers. Advertizer was voted Best Mobile Marketing Product in the 2006 Mobile Star Awards.

About Greenlight Wireless:
Greenlight Wireless is a leading innovator of wireless technologies, providing mobile solutions for enterprise-level businesses, Web portals, and wireless carriers. Greenlight Wireless’ consumer-oriented Skweezer service optimizes Web content for handheld devices, providing a richer browsing experience and adding value to wireless data offerings. Greenlight’s Advertizer product is a cutting-edge advertising program for operators, search engines and publishers who want to monetize their content in the mobile environment.

On the Net: Greenlight Wireless site: www.greenlightwireless.net
Advertizer site: www.advertizer.net
Greenlight Wireless blog: http://blog.greenlightwireless.net

Markzware announced the donation to PIA/GATF of a thirty-seat license of Flightcheck Professional–a preflight tool for professional designers and prepress production departments within the print and publishing industries.

Joseph Marin, Senior Prepress Technologist at PIA/GATF, states, “Flightcheck Professional is an important component to both PIA/GATF production and training programs. Flightcheck Professional is a tool used to efficiently preflight both native application files and PDF files. The software’s user-friendly interface and short learning curve is a perfect fit for our training programs.”

The addition of this latest donation from Markzware will continue to keep PIA/GATF on the cutting edge of software technology. Additional information on PIA/GATF Training Programs is available at http://www.gain.net (“Events and Training”) or by calling Karen Keller at 800-910-4283 ext. 711.

DENVER — August 9, 2007 — Quark Inc. announced today that the company is expanding its operations with a new Silicon Valley office. Opening in the third quarter of 2007 in Santa Clara, California, the center will be home to an expanding team of sales, customer support personnel and product developers.

By establishing a presence in Santa Clara, Quark aims to attract top talent in order to develop and deliver the industry’s most cutting-edge publishing technology to customers worldwide.

With the addition of product development capabilities in this new office, Quark is continuing its practice of reinvesting more than 25 percent of its revenue in software development, which is above industry average.

“We felt a presence in Silicon Valley was essential to facilitate partnerships, be closer to our clients and supplement our existing development team,” said Raymond Schiavone, president and CEO, Quark.

The Quark Santa Clara center is the latest addition to the company’s global presence. In addition, Quark continues to focus on expanding its presence in the Latin American, Asia, Eastern Europe, Benelux and Russian markets.

About Quark

Quark Inc. (www.quark.com) is an innovative software company providing design, production, and collaboration solutions that are transforming the business of creative communications. Quark has provided award-winning software for professional publishers since its flagship product, QuarkXPress, changed the course of traditional publishing. Denver-based Quark Inc. is privately held.

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) August 13, 2007 — The Pasadena Museum of California Art has honored the San Francisco design firm MINE™ with four inclusions in the prestigious California Design Biennial — the most inclusions of any graphic design firm.

“It’s an honor to have just one of our projects recognized,” says Christopher Simmons, principal and creative director of the three-person firm, “We were most honored to learn that four of our projects were accepted into the biennial.”

MINE™ is represented alongside several larger, more well-known firms such as Apple, Mitsubishi and Belkin, and is one of just 17 graphic design firms represented in the biannual exhibition.

MINE™’s winning projects include a book designed for Rockport Publishers, a poster for AIGA, the professional association for design, and the firm’s own stationery design. The fourth project, a roll of barricade tape imprinted with the words “everything is ok” has been appearing mysteriously at protest rallies and public gatherings over the past year. Although all of the projects have previously received international recognition for design excellence, Simmons says it is “particularly gratifying to be recognized in your home state.”

The juried exhibition showcases a cross section of the most innovative and important design produced in California over the past two years in five categories: fashion, furniture, transportation, consumer products and graphic design. The exhibition is structured to bring attention to new directions in design and explore the ways that design impacts and inspires everyday life.

The Biennial exhibition kicks off with a private reception for designers on August 18, and is open to the public starting August 19. For information, please visit the: www.pmcaonline.org or call 626 568 3665.

About MINE™
MINE™ is based in San Francisco, California. Since its founding in 2004, the firm has designed identities, books, consumer products, packaging and print and interactive collateral for scientific visionaries, educational reformists, best-selling authors, museums, design institutions, entrepreneurs, telecommunications giants and Hollywood producers. These projects have been recognized by numerous awards and features in leading national and international publications.

MINE was founded by designer Christopher Simmons. That same year, Christopher joined the likes of Saul Bass, Milton Glaser, Lucille Tenazas and Massimo Vignelli when Graphic Design: USA declared him, “A Person to Watch.” Christopher is a past president of the San Francisco AIGA, the professional association for design. On completion of Christopher’s tenure, Mayor Gavin Newsom issued an official proclamation declaring San Francisco to be a city “where design makes a difference.”

Exhibition Information
What     California Design Biennial 2007
When    August 19 – September 30, 2007
Hours    Wed. – Sun. 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Where     490 E Union St. Pasadena, ca. 91101
Tickets $6, $4 Seniors/Students
Phone     626 568 3665
URL     www.pmcaonline.org
Email    info @ pmcaonline.org